SEGOVIA VS GARCIA

GR NOs. L-5984 AND L-5985 JANUARY 28, 1954

FACTS:
Respondents Priscilla and Rosario Garcia inherited a parcel of land obtained from a
homestead patent in 1926. They sold and conveyed said land to petitioner Francisco Segovia
for Php10,000.
Deceased Angel Villegas was also an owner of a homestead with the homestead patent
issued in 1933. Villegas also sold the homestead to petitioner Segovia.
Shortly after liberation, respondents Garcias and Simplicia Villapando, widow of Villegas,
sought to repurchase from petitioner the parcels of land. In both cases, the Court of Appeals
ruled that petitioner has no right to refuse to allow the repurchase in view of the provisions of
Section 119 of Commonwealth Act No. 141 (which used to be Section 117 of Act 2874.

ISSUE:
Whether or not the respondents are allowed to repurchase the lands sold to the
petitioner.

RULING:
Yes, the respondents are allowed to repurchase the lands sold to the petitioner.

The provisions which may have bearing on the question now under consideration are
sections 116 and 117 of Act 2874, both in force at the time of the issuance of the homestead
patents of the parcels of land subject of the action, which are as follows:

SEC. 116. — Lands acquired under the free patent or homestead provisions shall not be
subject to encumbrance or alienation from the date of the approval of the application and
for a term of five years from and after the date of issuance of the patent or grant, nor
shall they become liable to the satisfaction of any debt contracted prior to .the expiration
of said period; but the improvements or crops on the land may be mortgaged or pledged
to qualified persons, associations, or corporations.

SEC. 117. Every conveyance of land acquired under the free patent or homestead
provisions, when proper, shall be subject to repurchase by the applicant, his widow, or
legal heirs, for a period of five years from the date of conveyance.

Section 116 of Act 2874 became section 118 of Commonwealth Act No. 141,
promulgated on November 7, 1936, and was amended on June 3, 1939 by Commonwealth Act
No. 456 by the addition of a paragraph. Section 117 of Act 2874 has become section 119
of Commonwealth Act No. 141. Where the patents and titles involved were issued in the years
1926 and 1927, when section 117 of Act 2874 was already in force, it is not true that there was
no law in force granting the right of repurchase when the titles in question were issued. The
provision as to the right of repurchase was in existence since 1919, the date when Act 2874
was passed. (Balboa vs. Farrales, 51 Phil., 498; Isaac, et al vs. Tan Chuan Leong et al., 89
Phil., 24.)||| )

The term "applicant" used in section 117 of Act 2874 as amended by section 119
of Commonwealth Act No. 141 can mean no other person than a patentee, or holder of a patent,
whether a homestead patent or a free patent, because only a patentee has the right to make a
conveyance and only a vendor can have the right to make a repurchase. This conclusion is
reinforced by the use of the phrase "when proper" in said section 117, under which conveyance
is proper only after, not before, the expiration of five years from the issuance of the patent.|||